


Complicated

by GingerBreton



Series: Then I Met You [4]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Flirting, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, catching feels, non-canon origin sole survivor, sole survivor is not nate/nora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerBreton/pseuds/GingerBreton
Summary: It’d be killing two birds with one stone, she’d said.  MacCready glared at the crinkled, blackened leaves of the fern sticking out of his duster pocket.  His duster, which like the rest of him, was currently chest deep in stinking marsh water, facing a cluster of ferals.--Ivy and MacCready's trip to take on the Gunners is stopped in its tracks by a poor judged detour.  Mac gets hurt, but he's never been very good at being cared for.
Relationships: Robert Joseph MacCready/Female Sole Survivor
Series: Then I Met You [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813063
Comments: 25
Kudos: 49





	Complicated

_ Mud-clouded, irradiated marsh water burned into his nose, filled his throat, and tried to force its way into his lungs.  _

_ And as if drowning wasn’t bad enough, a close second in the ranking of bad-to-worse was the gouging pain of claw-like nails burying themselves deep into his back, forcing him under water as they tried to tear chunks out of him.  _

_ A dull thought overtook him as the last of the breath left his lungs; he was going to die here. _

* * *

The chill of cold water was replaced by a brief but biting gust of wind as a door clicked shut. MacCready stirred, floorboards shifted as he flexed his back and shoulders, which turned out to be the worst idea he could have possibly had - pain radiated from his left shoulder like fracturing glass. 

He hissed through his teeth, taking a sharp breath in and sending a fresh wave across his body, briefly reigniting the burning sensation in his lungs. Waking up from a nightmare was supposed to be a relief, not just another chapter of discomfort. 

MacCready kept his eyes scrunched closed. There was light beyond the barrier of his eyelids, low but warm. If it hadn’t been for the dull headache starting to tap away between his eyes like water torture, it might even have been welcoming. 

“Shhh, shh, shh,” a voice murmured close by. “You’re okay.”

First things first, when you woke up somewhere strange, it was always best to keep your eyes shut. There was a lot you could learn when people didn’t know you were awake. Things that could keep you alive if you weren’t somewhere safe. 

He took a breath in through his nose; the cold December breeze cut through the old damp scent of the room, it carried with it the smell of vegetables (tatos probably) and manure – he grimaced, trying to hide the expression of regret at his deep inhale. So, it was a farm. He listened carefully, the lows of brahmin and the quiet chatter of voices confirmed enough for him – the only danger he faced here was boredom. 

As his apprehension dwindled further, he realised it was Ivy’s voice offering the soft reassurances – of course it was – and he could only assume it was her who’d just gently brushed his hair back from his sweat-damp forehead. The tender motion would be enough to lull him back to sleep if he let it, but he wasn’t ready to be drowning in his mind again, or to watch Lucy pulled to pieces, or to be yelling for his missing partner. No, it was time to wake up. 

His vision was blurry when he eventually peeked his eyes open, the dull glow of an oil lantern was the only thing beating back the shadows of early evening. It’s illumination barely reached the wooden slatted ceiling he found himself staring up at. 

He was laid on a mouldy old sleeping bag in a small room with broken windows, but that didn’t exactly narrow down locations when it came to the Commonwealth. Glancing out the window, the faint remnants of orange warming the darkness on the horizon told him the sun hadn’t long set. 

Sat next to him, lantern light shafting through her hair and casting her face in shadow, was his partner. He smiled to himself at the halo effect doing its best to make her look like an angel – if angels sat there drinking Nuka-Cherry with a cute little crinkle on their nose from their patented ‘worry frown’. 

Quick check for his other essentials; his sniper rifle was propped up in the corner by the lamp, which sat on the same small table as his hat. He reached up and patted his top pocket and felt the reassuring bulk of the toy soldier. Everything was where it should be. 

“So, did I die or is this just my guardian angel coming to pay me a visit?” he croaked, with a throat drier than wasteland dirt. 

“Hey you.” Ivy swiped the heel of her palm across her eye, before pushing a smile onto her lips and turning to look at him. “You had me worried there.”

_ Crap _ . He really did. That light tone didn’t hold any weight with him, he could hear the waver in her voice, see the tension in her smile. She’d hired him to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen, but all it took was ferals and he was failing people all over again. 

Now the light shone on her properly, the scratches on her face (earned in a fight he was nowhere near to help her with) put his heart into a vice-like grip. 

They didn’t look as bad as before, there wasn’t blood all over her face anymore, for one thing. In fact, her hair was damp but back to it’s usual creamy white – no more essence of marsh water – and her rolled down vault suit showed she’d swapped into a clean tank top. 

Come to think of it, when they’d arrived at Oberland Station it had only just been getting dark. Yes, he remembered where they were now - a cluster of shacks and a signal box huddled by the railroad tracks and surrounded by tato plants. He also remembered the welcoming committee, armed with pipe pistols and a whole heap of mistrust. 

The pair of them had been caught off guard on the tracks, Ivy still in his arms – the vice tightened another twist. They were soaked, bleeding and, unless the settlers expected him to hurl his injured partner at them, they were unarmed. 

He’d been about to give them the biggest f-ing piece of his mind, when the world that had started to spin around him, decided to turn out the lights. 

“How long—”

“You’ve been out for a couple of hours.” Ivy hugged her knees to her chest and nodded to the IV he hadn’t even noticed in his arm. “You’re on your second bag.”

A bag of Radaway was hung up using the bedstead as a makeshift drip-stand. It had almost run through. On the ground nearby was another spent bag and an empty blood pack. 

_ Shit. _ Well that would explain the headache, the dizziness and the nausea, not the mention the fever. There were only two things in the wasteland that’d do that to you; a whole heck of a lot of rads, or a couple of sips of Vadim’s moonshine. 

“They let us stay, huh?” He hoped his smile could pass for something warmer than a grimace. “I wouldn’t have guessed from that reception.”

Ivy sighed and raised an eyebrow at his salty remark.

“Well, you passing out and dropping me like a sack of potatoes… tatos? Is there an equivalent?” She frowned for a second, adjusting the grip on her knees and shifting her weight to the other hip. “Anyway, I think it helped our case.”

Mac smiled. He liked her tangents, when her old world and his new one got jumbled up in her head and knocked her train of thought off the tracks. Her mental meanders had tested his patience back when they first met, but now he found it soothing to watch her puzzle things out. 

Ivy leant forward and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. Her fingers were cool – a welcome relief he hadn’t realised he needed until they soothed some of the heat in his skin. 

“Your temperature’s coming back down, at least.” The last of the Radaway had run its course, so she slipped the drip from his arm. “How are you feeling?”

MacCready sat up –  _ big mistake _ . The room spun violently around him, dragging a sickening groan from his lips. If Ivy hadn’t been there to grab his arms and steady him, he’d have slumped back down onto the sleeping bag. 

Fat lot of good he was doing anyone in this state!  _ Those goddamn ferals _ . He wanted to scream. Or shoot something. Or have a cigarette. Where were his damn cigarettes? 

But he needed to keep his shit together.

“I feel like a herd of brahmin stomped on my head,” he griped, hoping he could at least manage to make her laugh. “What do you think, doc? Am I going to make it?”

She wasn’t even looking at him - wide-eyed, she was staring at his shoulder. Ever so slowly, she reached out and peeled the sleeping bag away from where blood had soaked it to his shoulder. He couldn’t hold in the pained cry when she did it. 

* * *

_ It’d be killing two birds with one stone, she’d said. MacCready glared at the crinkled, blackened leaves of the fern sticking out of his duster pocket. His duster, which like the rest of him, was currently chest deep in stinking marsh water, facing a cluster of ferals. _

_ He lined up another shot, taking two down with one bullet – a very nicely placed double headshot. Ordinarily he’d be singing his own praises, but this whole mess had the potential to go bad real fast. One tackle from a feral and he’d lost the upper ground, got separated from his partner and cut off from any hope of an easy retreat.  _

_ Once-upon-a-time, taking out ferals had been child’s play. Literally. He’d been at it since he was 10. He’d perfected the art of anticipating their shambling, diving movements. Could line up a shot with barely a glance, the same way he took down raiders and greenskins these days – it came as naturally to him as a heartbeat.  _

_ It was no boast when he claimed to be the ‘best shot in the Commonwealth’. If you asked MacCready, he was a modern-day Robin-fucking-Hood – except the beggared of the commonwealth could keep their mitts off his caps. _

_ That had all changed four years ago, at least with the ferals it had. Now he had to focus – there was no winging this shit. He had to tell his hands to stop shaking, to count his breaths so he even remembered to take them. Every time those things showed up he had to ride the line between fear and rage - which might have been useful if he was wielding a baseball bat, but it was no damn good for a sniper.  _

_ His finger was slick on the trigger, and as much as he wished he could just blame it on the water, his palms were sweating. He bungled his second shot, it only winged the racing creature.  _

_ This was goddamn nightmare fuel.  _

_ The third shot came from the walkway above him. _

_ “I could have got it,” he snapped, more harshly than he meant to, but this shit had got him on edge.  _

_ “I know.” Ivy didn’t even bicker back at him.  _

_ She was scared. And alone.  _

_ But he’d thank anything that’d listen that she had a good eye - he admired the clean shot between the eyes of the feral before it sank beneath the water - and that her aim was getting better every day. The trouble would come if she got overwhelmed and he couldn’t get to her.  _

_ Hell of a lot of good he was doing down here.  _

_ The pair had taken on ferals before, but not in this number and he’d not left her side the whole time. This was different. There were so many - more rising up out of the water or scuttling across the rooftops at every turn. They were closer to the Glowing Sea here, but this was ridiculous. It was like someone had set up a feral summer camp and the damn things had waited for them to get right into the centre of town before attacking.  _

_ With barely a thought, he took down another feral as it rounded the corner ahead. It was easier if he just went on instinct, less time for thoughts of consequences - and the memories of old ones - to creep in.  _

_ MacCready patted his top pocket. Good, it was still there.  _

_ “I hate getting wet,” he moaned. _

_ “I know.” Came the reply (after a few more gunshots), this time from a few roofs down, further back into the heart of the sunken village. _

_ MacCready made to move forward in an attempt to keep pace with her, his feet dragging through deep silt. He’d barely made it a few yards before something heavy fell with a loud splash right behind him. He definitely didn’t have time to turn around before it was on him – teeth, nails, sheer weight dragging him down under the water.  _

* * *

“I’m so sorry.” Ivy’s voice was so small, her eyes were swimming when she looked at him. “I really fucked up.”

MacCready frowned, confused. It wasn’t her fault he’d bled all over the damn sleeping bag. The settlers would just have to get over it.

“I took us to that awful place and you got hurt,” her voice was growing more and more frantic until it finally cracked and tears spilled down her face. “When they dragged you under—”

_ Oh, Ives. Did she really think this was all her fault? _

He leaned forward and caught the back of her neck, gently tugging her forwards until their foreheads touched. A startled gasp mingled with a sob when he did, her red-rimmed brown eyes looking straight into his brilliant blue gaze. 

“Don’t you dare blame yourself for this,” he murmured. “Yeah, sh—stuff went wrong, but we made a heck of a team out there.” 

“Mac, I thought I got you killed…”

This close together, with their gazes locked, even in that dark little room, he could see the scratch the knife had made down her eye. She must have come damn close to losing it. What kind of animal could do that to a sweetheart like her. He felt his temper bubbling up, but given it was 200 years too damn late, it was about as redundant as he’d been today. 

“I’m a Capital Wasteland radroach,” he smiled, bumping the tip of his nose against hers. “It’ll take more than a few ferals to kill me.”

The words tasted like bile in the back of his throat, knowing they might well be true, but the same didn’t extend to the people he loved. But then, they weren’t for his benefit, and the intended recipient had  _ almost _ laughed, which was definitely something.

“I am sorry tho—”

“Ah, ah. You saved my ass, angel. I’d be feral food if it wasn’t for you.” 

It was true. It had been terrifyingly close. 

Ivy bumped her nose against his before pulling away, shifting back into her spot against the wall, leaving him with an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach. Her tears had dried up, and she wiped away the remaining trickles from her cheeks with the heel of her palm. 

MacCready dug in his pants’ pocket for his cigarettes, pulling one out only to watch it flop and snap.  _ He hated water _ . 

His partner giggled when he looked across at her, a pathetic sight with his packet of ruined cigarettes. Then she laughed, really laughed. The tension from moments before finding its way out in nervous energy. 

Ivy laughing -  _ really laughing _ \- was a joy. 

First, she’d fight to hold it in, but you’d see it building in her eyes. Then the corners of her mouth would twitch, her lips desperately wanting to break open into a grin, so she’d catch it behind a hand - both if it was especially bad - like, if he couldn’t see the smile, he hadn’t won the game of making her laugh. Tears like diamonds flecked with mascara would form in the corners of her eyes and trickle down her cheeks.

He'd happily sit there with half a cigarette hanging off his bottom lip if he got to watch that sight.

Once her giggles had faded, she filled a cup with purified water for him. It’d be more soothing for his throat than a cigarette anyway, just not for his nerves. Regardless, he downed the water in one and held his cup back out for a refill, big blue eyes pleading the same way dogmeat did anytime they were cooking something tasty. Ivy obliged.

“How about I take a look at that shoulder now?” 

Whether he’d like her to or not, she was already digging in her pack for antiseptic and filling a small basin with more purified water. 

* * *

Removing MacCready’s coat and shirt turned out to be more of a challenge than they’d anticipated. The fabric of both were either caught in the wound or dried to his skin, and the attempted removal of them left him chewing on the back of his hand. 

The pair of them sat hip-to-hip, the small of Ivy’s back resting against his knee as she focussed on her work. Outside he could Diamond City Radio playing quietly from somewhere in the settlement. It showed how hard his partner was concentrating that she wasn’t even humming along. He let the strains of Billie Holliday wash over him and tried to think about anything other than the pain in his shoulder. 

“Mac?”

Ivy cast a quick glance MacCready’s way between strokes of the damp cloth she was using to stop the dried blood clinging to the fabric. 

“Hmm?” He tried to sound casual, like he hadn’t just been counting the freckles on the bridge of her nose.  _ 23 _ .

“What does RJ stand for?” She treated him to the little hopeful smile she usually reserved for shopkeepers and potential employers. 

“Where did that come from?”

“I just wondered.”  _ And you thought it’d distract me from thinking about my shoulder trying to pull itself apart. _ “I can’t believe I’ve never gotten around to asking before.”

“Oh, you have.” 

He grinned at the confusion dawning into a half-memory on her face. He’d been just sober enough to remember the second agreement they made on Halloween night, when they first met in Goodneighbor – one shot per question. 

It’s no wonder she couldn’t remember though. Most of his memories, other than a few of her more outlandish questions, revolved around those big, bright,  _ buzzed _ eyes. 

They’d been sprawled on opposite sofas in The Third Rail, half a bottle of whiskey – which she obviously couldn’t handle – down and she’d just asked him (as one of the 20 questions he’d limited her to) what the meaning of life was. He’d told her to shut up and drink. Then she’d tried for his name with so much mischief in those eyes and a smirk on her lips that he’d never quite been able to take his eyes off since. 

“And I’ll tell you now, what I told you then. No way. I’m not telling you. You’ll only use it to tell me off.”

He hissed indignantly at the cold hand she purposefully rested on his chest when she paused to give him an appraising look. 

“That’s fair,” she eventually conceded - most likely when her hand had reached the temperature a human body  _ should _ be - setting back to work, only to pause again a second later.

“Of course...” she smirked at the new idea that had presented itself to her, leaning across conspiratorially to whisper in his ear. “You might have to make a choice between that, and me making up names for you.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he replied without hesitation.

“That’s your prerogative, Rodney.”

He glared at her.

* * *

It took a couple more minutes to work the material free of the wound – and a couple more minutes of enduring every name beginning with ‘R’ that Ivy could think of – but now the damage was plain to see. 

Or at least he could guess it was from the sudden lack of teasing and the expression of horror on Ivy’s face. The colour that he’d tried so hard to get back into those cheeks had drained again, and the guilt he could see in her eyes, when she flicked them to his face then back to his shoulder, was like a mirror to his own. 

If the deep red stains that had soaked into his once white tank and across his shoulder were anything to go by, those ferals had made a goddamn mess of him. 

“I—this might take a little while. I’m going to need to clear out the…debris…and clean the scratches before I can even think about getting a Stimpak in there.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “These deeper ones… RJ, they’re going to hurt.”

“I’m a big boy, angel. I can take it.” 

_ Debris _ . He knew exactly what that meant. And damn right it was going to hurt. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to dig broken off feral nails and teeth from his flesh. At least this time he wasn’t trying to comfort a bawling infant as he did it. 

When she dragged the lamp closer, MacCready knew exactly what else she’d see. The back of his shoulder and upper arm were littered with old scars. How long would it take her to spot the similarities between the old marks and the ones she was cleaning? He wondered whether she’d guess that’s what wrecked his duster in the first place.

He braced himself, waiting for the inevitable pain, trying to ignore the glint of lamplight on the already red-tinted basin of water next to him. Picking a patch of peeling paint on the skirting board, he stared at it, trying to make himself focus on what colour it might have been two centuries ago. Would it have been something fun? Midnight blue, maybe? Not likely.

A shiver ran up his spine as Ivy smoothed a hand over his shoulder-blade, her thumb tracing the lines of the old wounds with a touch as delicate as a kiss. She didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. One glance between them and she could recognise scars with a history. If anyone understood the vulnerability that came with them, it was her. 

MacCready had never been much of one for looking after himself when he was hurt. He was more of a ‘rip the bandaid off’ kind of guy. Stick a stimpak in it and hope for the best.

Oh, but Ivy, she was as gentle as she could be with him, soft hands working to soothe, stopping with every groan and halted curse – if she could – whispering apologies and reassurances that she wouldn’t take much longer. 

The water beside him grew deeper red with every time she had to wash the blood from her fingertips. He thought he’d bite clean through his lip when she dug out the last of the debris, it was buried deep and he could hear from trying to keep from retching as she pulled it from deep in the muscle. 

The smell of the antiseptic burned his nostrils. He was such a mess, he barely even felt the sting of the carefully applied stimpak getting to work on knitting his muscle back together. Woozily he pressed his fingers to his bleeding lip, rocking forward to put his head between his raised knees until the room stopped spinning. 

“Hey, that was the last one,” Ivy gently rubbed her hand up his spine and across his uninjured shoulder, quietly reassuring him. “Just got to get you bandaged up and you’ll be good as new.”

“And what about you?” he asked as she began to bandage his shoulder, glancing pointedly at her swollen ankle which was covered in an ever-increasing nebula of purple and black bruises.

“It’s just a sprain, Mac” she shrugged. “It’ll go down in time. Let me worry about you.”

* * *

_ He heard the gunshots, that wasn’t what frightened him. It was the scream that came after. The last he’d seen of Ivy she’d been standing up on a pitched roof – stupidly out in the open, but if she hadn’t thrown caution to the wind to get that vantage point, he’d be a dead man.  _

_ Now she was gone.  _

_ There were feral corpses bobbing in the water all around him, even more hanging off the roofs and walkways. He hadn’t realised how many were on him until he pulled himself back up, fighting for air.  _

_ In seconds his vicious memories were replaced by a new fear.  _

_ Bleeding and dizzy, he began wading through the deserted streets. He couldn’t see any more movement, not around him and not on the rooftops. And he couldn’t see her. The village was as silent as when they arrived.  _

_ “Hey partner, you okay?” he hazarded a shout.  _

_ No answer, just the echo of his voice bouncing back off deserted buildings.  _

_ MacCready started to move faster towards where he’d last seen her, forcing his body through the deep water, causing eddies and ripples to trail out behind him. He tried to keep calm but his breaths were getting shaky.  _

_ “Hey angel, you good?” he shouted louder this time.  _

_ Nothing.  _

_ “Ivy?”  _

_ It was more of a croak than a shout. There was no way anyone could hear it. He could barely hear it. But that didn’t stop the nausea rising in the pit of his stomach, or his pulse starting to pound in his ears.  _

_ No, no, no, no, no… not this time. _

_ “Ives!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Over and over again, he shouted, his voice mixing with the echoes as he dragged himself up the rusted fire escape onto the rooftop. _

_ “Mac?” He almost missed it. Her voice was stifled by coughing, but it was her.  _

_ Scrambling up onto the pitched roof he’d last seen her on, he spotted a hole edged with rotten beams and snapped tiles. Peering over the edge into the gloom of a dusty attic space, he could see Ivy. She lay crumpled half on/half under a pile of broken beams with blood smeared across her face. Her ankle was caught at a weird angle. The body of a feral lay impaled where it landed just feet away.  _

_ He wasn’t sure he’d ever been so relieved to see a person in his life. The way she was smiling at him, she looked pretty damn glad to see him too.  _

_ “Did we win?” _

_ Shaky laughter spilled from his lips, “Something like that, angel.” _

_ “You called me Ives.” _

_ She gave him the soft look of a woman who’d probably hit her head on the way down. _

* * *

But Mac was the one doing the worrying. 

It had been a long time since he’d been that worried about losing a partner. What rattled him the most was that when she’d disappeared out of his sight, his panic had nothing to do with suddenly being alone in a feral-infested swamp. He didn’t even spare a thought for the Gunner base less than a half a mile away. He’d been too wrapped up in the fear of losing her.

Ivy was giving him that soft look again now, even without the concussion. Would it be so much to hope that she actually gave a damn about him? He’d made mistakes in the past, given his trust to people who didn’t deserve, and he’d been burned. 

But maybe she  _ was _ different, just like he’d told her when he convinced her to help him with this dumbass plan. 

“You really don’t have to do all this for me, angel, but thank you.” 

Without thinking he reached out, brushed that one stubborn curl back behind her ear and cupped her cheek. It took his thumb brushing her scar for him to realise that he was the biggest dumbass in the commonwealth. Of all the things he could have done…

He was on the verge of panicking and pulling his hand away, when she pressed her hand over the top of and smiled at him. He couldn’t have imagined such a different reaction to when she’d been falling apart in front of him in Malden. 

“You should let somebody else take care of you every once in a while.” 

If he thought she’d been looking at him softly before, well this look coaxed all the air from his lungs, and if he remembered to breathe at any point in the future, he’d struggle. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Usually MacCready was the one who knew how to tease blushes and smiles out of her. To catch her eye and leave her speechless. How did one simple gesture have his stomach in knots? 

Holy crap, he did not see this coming.

There was a creak on the wooden stairs outside their room and he wasn’t sure he’d ever resented a noise so much in his life. Their little bubble had been burst and now he could hear the chatter of settlers outside again, and the damn brahmin still hadn’t shut up – even though he’d been deaf to them just moments before. He could hear one of those damn crows squawking away in the woods nearby. Dinner was cooking, and people were laughing, and didn’t they have anything better to do than interrupt them. 

Ivy gave his hand a quick squeeze and took it away from her face just as the door creaked open and one of the settlers arrived with a basin of scalding hot water - now he thought about it, after the day they just had, he probably smelled like antiseptic and stagnant marsh water.  _ Nice _ .

“I’ll leave you to get washed up.” There was a flush to Ivy’s cheeks that couldn’t just be put down to warm lighting. He just smiled at her like an idiot. 

“You need a hand down the stairs?” their host enquired, giving them both the kind of look that gossip was built on. 

MacCready glared at the woman. Ivy might be quick to forgive, but he remembered that pipe pistol, and if he started getting shit from caravan guards, he’d know exactly where it had come from. 

“No, thank you, Lynn. I can manage.” The woman bustled back out into the night air, but MacCready could hear her taking her time going down the stairs. Nosy...

Before he could help her, Ivy had dragged herself to her feet, using the doorframe to keep as much weight off her ankle as possible. 

“I’ll be outside.”

“What, no bed bath?” MacCready forced a laugh. This was the crap they usually joked about, right? He was sure it wouldn’t have sounded so awkward that morning. 

Ivy shook her head in exasperation, or at least that was probably what she was going for, but the grin and the blush undermined the impression. 

“I was an artist, sweetheart, not a nurse,” she teased. “So, unless you’re planning on posing for a life drawing, I’m going to go and help with supper.” 

A sudden panic hit him as the room emptied. What if something happened? What if something happened while she was out there and he couldn’t get to her in time.

The door had barely clicked shut before he called after her, “Angel?”

“Yeah?” she poked her head back in, curious smile in place. The wave of relief he felt after just a second, well, it was ridiculous.

“Stay close. Yeah?”

* * *

The previous night had ended up much like that morning had begun - with bickering and a meal. A big bowl of vegetable stew and a quarrel about how to get back to Diamond City, to be more precise. Not that they’d gone to sleep on bad terms, if intertwined fingers and shy smiles in the darkness were anything to go by.

MacCready watched the weather suspiciously, the morning was dull and windy, and knowing his luck, they’d probably end up hiking in the rain. He stood on the tracks with Ivy, all packed up and ready to go, but they were still undecided on the route they should take. Her ankle was no better than the day before, despite her hobbling on it and trying to convince him that she’d be able to make it the long way on foot.

“I’m telling you, if we go via Cambridge it’s actual roads and I’ll be able to walk. I might just need a little support,” she challenged him. Again. 

“And I’m telling you, you’re in no fit state to try and get past raiders  _ and _ muties if they’ve infested that apartment block again,” he snapped back, frustrated. “If we take the shorter route we can be back in under two hours.”

“And if there are yao guai, Mac? What then? I’m definitely going to get eaten, is what.” She folded her arms across her chest, the very picture of defiance – if it wasn’t for her standing on one leg like a lawn flamingo. “Where’s the salt? Because you might as well season me now.”

“Stop being so damn dramatic.” He rolled his eyes at her indignant look. “I’d get us there in less time if you’d just let me carry you.”

“And what about your shoulder?”

He chose to ignore that one. The shoulder in question still ached like a son-of-a…gun.

“I’ll tell you what RJ stands for.” Looking at her like he’d just upped the ante on a bet she could never refuse. “But only if we can go the shorter way.”

_ …got her. _

“Really?”

He shook his head and stalked over, picking her up in one fluid movement and–hopefully–managed to hide the sharp pain in his shoulder. She quickly wrapped an arm around his neck to steady herself and swallowed hard – he couldn’t miss it – composing herself after being caught off guard. 

“Robert. Joseph.”

She smiled, glancing away at nothing in particular, like she was trying out the feel of his name in her mind. Then she smiled at him, and it was his turn to steady himself. There was none of the teasing he’d anticipated, just that gentle warmth that always caught him off guard. 

“Ok, you win. We can go your way.”

_ Oh, this was going to get complicated. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I had a bit of a battle with this one, so I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> Quick note that might help make some references make sense:   
> For this series, with MacCready's backstory, I had him travel to the Commonwealth when he was 17 and it was then that he joined the Gunners. I also write Lucy MacCready as being a different person to Lucy from Little Lamplight.


End file.
